SAND CREATURES

 I had grown eight cycles of seasons when I asked the village elder what life is about.  I asked because I saw life is pain, joy, happiness, injury, suffering, sorrow, and death repeating through the seasons.

“We know not where we came from; we know not why we are here; we know not where we are going,” said the Elder, and then said, “Now go collect some wood.”

What are we?  We are sand creatures, made of beach sand, and when we die we return to the sand as ignorant about life as we arrived.

I am old now, an elder, 800 moons, ready to return to the sand. It has been an exiting adventure interrupted by boredom, and I know nothing about life, EXCEPT, how not to be miserable.  I have learned how to enjoy life,  all of it, every season, every sand creature, everything that happens.  And then near the end of my life I had some experiences that taught me things, and they were not about sand creatures.

I learned I am something more than my body, mind, emotions when I was aware I was not in my body.  One moment I was in my body and the next way above my body out among the stars.  When I became aware I was in space, I was suddenly back in my body.  It happened three time.

I told another elder of my experience and he said he had been out of his body and was every sand creature and all things made of sand and when he came back into his body he did not know what he was.  He thought he went crazy.  And another time he said he was out of his body and was aware of all sand creatures everywhere and all things made of sand.  After that the elder said he knew he was crazy, but dismissed his experiences because he didn’t know what to do about them, and they had no value in helping him haul wood or carry water.

Maybe we are not just sand creatures but more, but it doesn’t matter.  What matters, what has value is being able to enjoy life until you return to the sand or return to the stars as some other sand creature.

Sand is smart.  I look around the island and see what sand has built.  I look into the sky at the stars and moon, and at the sun, wind, water and sand, and I marvel at the sands intelligence.  We, sand creatures, can do none of those things, and those things are magnificent, beautiful, beyond our abilities, beyond our senses to fathom how they came to be.  

When I see a parrot or a monkey in a tree I am awe struck that such creatures exist, and no less the tree, and no less that my fellow sand creatures and I exist.  It seems to me that someone or something is having a good time creating life, and maybe, just maybe, it is like the other elder who was aware of all creation, and whatever life is, is also aware.  To me, that thought makes sense, but I know not, but beyond that, I am too busy just enjoying the life I know nothing about.